Before there were web logs there were diaries, journals, and memoirs. Midland Passages is a narrative of life shaped in the small towns of the American heartland. "I'm bound away 'cross the wide Missouri."

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Neil and his band mate Leighton are contemplating the production of a podcast entitled "Speaking Ill of the Dead" in which they challenge Denver Uber drivers to defend their apparent fascination with all things Grateful Dead.

Although I am sympathetic, I have a small rebuttal.

Dear Neil

With respect to “Speaking Ill of the Dead”, you well know
that no one who knows me would ever place me in the camp of the first
generation of Deadheads.Yet, every endeavor
of any lasting repute must have some foundation, some basis, some work of merit,
that defines its reputation, no matter how thin that reputation grows over the
years.

For the Grateful Dead that work of merit is “Truckin’”.Yes, it is just another song about a
traveling band and drugs, albeit from a uniquely told point of view with a weary
inevitability about it.But in the
middle of the long mumbled rambling over the demise of Sweet Jane, the defining
hook comes crashing in.Loud, high, and
clear comes the chorus.

“Sometimes the light is all
shining on me;

Other times I can barely see.

Lately it occurs to me,

What a long strange trip it’s
been.”

You can view this as simply an expositional statement on the highs and
lows of drug abuse, which it is.But,
more importantly, it is a well-versed metaphor for life, with or without drugs,
life pure or impure, the wheel of fortune, not as your Grandma Jan understands
the Wheel of Fortune, but as the Greeks understood it, as Baby Face Nelson
understands it in “O Brother”, strapped helplessly to the inexorable rise and
fall of one’s own destiny.It is the
tide, daylight and darkness, the seasons, the joys and sorrows, the loves and
losses, the ups and the downs of daily life, of any life, on which all art, all
life, is tethered.The summation is no
less metaphysical.Step back from the
spinning, it says, and appreciate it, accepting that our journey from the past
to the future is wonderfully strange.Or, as Seuss would have it, “From there to here, from here to there,
funny things are everywhere!”

There, I’ve said my peace.You
can go back, now, to listening to The Decemberists.

Our Current Feature

Previous Memoirs

The Antarctic Journal of a Young Man (1975) by S. A. McCormick begins on December 16, 2006.

Loose Ends (1929-1959) by K.A. McCormick begins on April 13, 2007.

Life Sketch (1863-1902) by H.A. McCormick, Sr. begins on April 29, 2007.

Excerpts from the 1918 Wynot Tribune begin on June 2, 2007. The Wynot Tribune was published by H.A. McCormick, Sr.

Under One Roof is a father and son comparison of the same small town events as viewed from both sides of the generation gap. It begins on September 15, 2007.

Auburn and Nemaha County, Soicial and Economic Trends, 1960-2003 begins on August 10, 2008. This is original research by Ken McCormick on the recent economic history of small-town Auburn, the county seat of Nemaha County, Nebraska. Although it is strictly the effort of an amateur historian (not being peer-reviewed or anything), Mr. McCormick's analysis and conclusions stand on their own merit.

The Prairie Curmudgeon. Having finally run out of material about small towns in the Midlands, I am temporarily forced to publish crusty, ill-tempered opinions of old men.

Eduard of Nemaha, a Comedy in Five Acts. This play was begun in 1973. Nemaha and Peru are two small towns in southeast Nebraska. For those of you who have perused The Antarctic Journal of a Young Man, you have already met Debrushka.

Richard M. Nixon, a Play in Five Acts

This play was concieved in 1973. It is an impression of the great tapestry of news and history as perceieved from the distance of a small town in the Midlands.